The Horn That Was Blowing
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash, RWHG het. Fifteenth fic in the Cloak and Dagger series, sequel to Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity. Harry and Draco, near their goal of taking down the Ministry, reach out for help. Ron's a bit stunned to discover some of the things his best friend's been hiding. COMPLETE.


**Title: **The Horn That Was Blowing

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione

**Warnings: **Mentions of violence, angst

**Rating: **PG-13

**Wordcount: **3100

**Summary: **Near their goal of taking down the Ministry, Harry and Draco reach out for help. Ron is stunned to discover some of the things his best friend has been hiding.

**Author's Notes: **This story is the fifteenth in the Cloak and Dagger series, following "Invisible Sparks," _Hero's Funeral, _"Rites of the Dead," _Sister Healer, _"Working With Them," _This Enchanted Life, _"Letters From Exile," _Writ on Water, _"Evening Star," _The Library of Hades, _"There Was Glory," _A Reign of Silence, _"Dictionary of Losses," and _Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity. _It will be followed in a week by the next chaptered story in the series, _Chains of Fool's Gold. _The title comes from a line in J. R. R. Tolkien's poem "Lament for Eorl the Young."

**The Horn That Was Blowing**

The owl arrived so early in the morning that Ron had to stumble out of bed and let in the bird with sleep still making him blind.

Hermione muttered something in the bed and rolled over. Ron shook his head at her, then realized it didn't matter. She had already gone back to sleep.

Smiling fondly, Ron looked down at the envelope, turning it further into the light of the fire. The owl that had brought it, a night-black bird with fierce yellow eyes, had already taken off.

Ron stopped smiling when he saw, and recognized, the handwriting on the envelope.

He closed his eyes and swallowed. The pain that had settled in the center of his chest for so long that it was hard to remember a time when he had been without it flared up. He sat down in the chair at the table that Hermione usually kept for her own writing, staring blankly at the letter.

It was Harry's handwriting. Harry, who had stayed in the Aurors when Ron left, and suffered from a succession of strange partners who had included Draco Malfoy. Harry, who had fled a month ago with accusations of murder and Dark magic following him.

Ron and Hermione had received exactly one letter from him in all that time. Harry had told them that he was innocent, but that he was going into hiding, and that he wouldn't be able to communicate with them for any length of time. So far as Ron knew, Harry hadn't been caught since.

_Well, of course he hasn't, _Ron thought a moment later, irritated with himself. He might have quit the Ministry, but he still remembered the procedures for dealing with captured prisoners well enough. If Harry was in a holding cell in the Ministry, there was no way that they would have let him near an owl.

Ron shook his head to get rid of the debate, and tore the letter open.

It was substantially longer than the last one Harry had sent them, he noted. Well, good. Maybe that meant Harry had broken free of his own paranoia or Malfoy or whatever else had influenced him to think that his friends couldn't help him, and was about to start trusting them now. Ron tilted the letter over into the firelight to read it.

_Dear Ron and Hermione,_

_I know that you might hate me for this, but I'm not writing because everything is fine and I'm in a safe place. I'm writing to you to ask for your help. And I'm finally ready to tell you all the details._

_(I hope that helps. I know Hermione has wanted all the details for months. I can just imagine the smile on her face. At least, I hope there's a smile on her face. I can't know if you lot…_)

There was a long, trailing blob of ink there, as though Harry had scribbled out some words that he'd started to write down. Ron rolled his eyes, a smile widening back across his lips in spite of himself. Harry ought to know better than to think that they would ever turn against him or abandon him.

_It's like this:_

_I was assigned to the Socrates Corps, which has a specific purpose. They're supposed to hunt down the worst Dark wizards in the world, the ones that go insane studying Dark Arts. The ones like Voldemort. They named the twisted and came up with the concept by watching Voldemort, in fact. They think that all twisted have some wandless magic, can't use Healing magic, have symbols somewhere (like the Dark Mark), have followers (like Voldemort had the Death Eaters), and use Dark magic whenever possible._

_I was assigned there, and so was Draco, because we both encountered twisted on the cases we had right before that. The thing I hunted couldn't have been anything except a twisted, it was so powerful—more like a magical creature than a wizard. Draco can't talk about his case because of official orders, but I know it was similar._

Ron jerked his head back a little. He hadn't thought that Harry was on such intimate terms that he would refer to Malfoy by his first name and know exactly what he was thinking.

Then he sighed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. He ought to have realized that, really. Harry had called Malfoy by his first name in the last letter. Either you didn't get along at all with your Auror partner, the way Harry hadn't with Lauren Hale, making the Ministry reassign you, or you fell in deeply enough to become each other's primary support. Ron had resigned mostly because he was sick of the Ministry politics and the danger that came along with being an Auror, but also because he had fallen into that kind of relationship with Harry, and he didn't like it. Harry was his best friend, but Hermione was his _wife. _Ron thought that he owed her the most intimacy and the best parts of himself. Maybe the danger they'd faced together had encouraged Harry to see the best parts of Malfoy, as hidden as they had to be.

_The Socrates Corps had the Ministry's permission to kill the twisted we hunted. We didn't have to bring them back for a trial. In fact, we weren't even supposed to try and capture them unless a whole bunch of conditions were fulfilled, like a cell being able to hold them and it not putting anyone else's life in danger._

Ron closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. He knew Hermione would probably say angrily that not even the _Ministry _was capable of condoning violence like that, but he knew it wasn't true. It was another reason he had left. He had heard enough rumors, enough gossip about Dark wizards who "vanished" from captivity, to think that someone in the Ministry was condoning their murders.

That Harry would be involved in something like this, though…

Ron took a deep breath and kept reading.

_We were working well together, Draco and I, but we kept seeing a twisted with blue eyes making appearances in different people's minds. He could take them over, make them do what he needed, and then erase their memory of the experience. And he seemed to be hunting down twisted that could identify or find him, and then he started hunting us._

_We were too dangerous to him. Eventually we found out that he was Ernhardt, the Head Auror, and had been twisted for a long time. He was more sane than most of them, and he could keep a low profile, but he lost his head when it came to us. We confronted him and killed him, but he jumped into another body, that of Auror Nicolette Macgeorge._

Ron blinked. He had heard something about the Head Auror, and something about how he'd been a Dark wizard and other stories about how he was the _victim _of one. Harry's story would make sense of the contradictions, and of course Ron wanted to believe his best mate.

It just seemed—incredible, that was all. To know that kind of corruption could go on in the Ministry, and not even Ron had been cynical enough to know the full extent of what was happening.

Ron shook his head and kept reading.

_Of course, the Ministry wanted somebody to blame, especially because none of them had ever noticed that Ernhardt was a twisted, and then Macgeorge ran away. So we hunted him down, with the help of other Socrates Aurors, and finally managed to kill him. Macgeorge survived. We thought that was all, but the Ministry turned on us, saying that we must be lying and we'd murdered Ernhardt when his original body died, and drove us into exile._

_We've been attacked several times since then, and we keep moving and hiding. But we've had enough of that. We didn't do what the Ministry says we did. We were the only ones fighting Ernhardt, the only ones he tried to kill because we came so close to what he really was, and the Ministry had already persecuted us once before, when Ernhardt made up false accusations against us. We were sick of it._

_We _are _sick of it. So we're going to try and reveal the Ministry's stupidities to everyone who should know. We're going to have a public showing of the past in the Ministry, raise what happened like Pensieve memories and show them to anyone who wants to come._

_I wanted to know if you would join us._

And beneath that, there was only Harry's signature.

Ron leaned back against the chair, his mouth open slightly as he shook his head. He couldn't believe that Harry would ask him something like this. He couldn't believe Harry would keep something _concealed _like this. He'd never been a good liar. Ron had seen him a few times since he started working for the Socrates Corps, too. He'd never thought that Harry was lying about anything.

Maybe this was Malfoy's influence on him. Ron almost woke up Hermione and asked her to help come up with a plan to separate Malfoy from Harry.

But then Ron sighed. Malfoy had fled along with Harry, had been accused along with Harry, and hadn't betrayed him. And Ron _had _heard something about how Malfoy's family had turned their backs on him when he became part of the Aurors, and refused to acknowledge him anymore. That was a sacrifice that even Ron had to respect.

Perhaps they could trust him enough to continue with for the moment, which left Ron with an even more urgent question:

Were they going to help Harry?

He glanced over at Hermione, who was sleeping with her hair spread around her and her mouth open. Ron smiled. He knew a little line of drool would be creeping down from her chin to wet the pillow, and Hermione would deny it in the morning, while wiping furtively at her mouth to see if he had noticed.

Hermione would say yes immediately, Ron knew. She still trusted Harry, and she had been itching to act against the Ministry ever since they had started fiercely blocking her efforts to help house-elves instead of just ignoring them. She would probably be able to accept Malfoy more easily than Ron would, even, because while he had insulted her and hated her in school, she didn't have that old history of feuding with his family that Ron did.

But Ron had to think about it. About the person his best mate had become, who had fled with the person he used to hate instead of making one effort to contact his friends. Surely he knew that Ron and Hermione would have fought with him against the Ministry?

Ron leaned back against the chair again and closed his eyes. Old memories and visions of people appeared and paraded down the back of his eyelids, clear as glass.

He saw Malfoy and the way he had focused on Harry during school, turning every Quidditch game between Gryffindor and Slytherin into a personal contest between the two of them, and the way he had sneered and then strutted when Harry was looking at him. And Harry had complained maybe once or twice about Malfoy to Ron since they started working together.

He saw the way Harry had stared at Lionel Vane when they were working together, the times that Ron saw them both together or even came upon Harry looking at a photograph of Vane he kept on the table in his bedroom. The staring had only got worse after Vane's death, really, instead of better, the way you'd expect it would if he and Harry had only shared a normal partnership.

Ron sighed through his nose. He strongly suspected that Harry had fallen in love with Vane, and the sudden way Vane had pulled away from him said that he didn't feel the same.

And now he feared Harry had fallen in love with Malfoy.

_Feared or just thought? _

Ron held up his hands, as though Harry was there and demanding the answer. Ron couldn't answer, though. He thought again about Vane, the devastation on Harry's face when he told them his partner was dead, and the blood that had been sprayed up his face and hands from whatever he had done to Vane's murderer.

And if he had been like that with one partner who had grown cool towards him, what would he do with Malfoy, who seemed to have stood by him and fled with him and agreed to cooperate with him on a plan as daring and un-Slytherin as storming the Ministry?

Ron rubbed the bridge of his nose with his finger. He didn't doubt Harry's words about what had happened. It was like the Ministry to try and cow the Boy-Who-Lived by assigning him to a group as awful as the Socrates Corps, and then to try to silence and forget him.

But it did make him wonder if Harry trusted Malfoy too much, and if his judgment had been distorted by some of the things that Malfoy had done and told him.

Ron finally shook his head. He didn't think he could make the decision from this distance. And he wanted to stand with Harry, in the end. He wanted to be beside him if he did something as momentous as confronting the Ministry with its crimes.

If Malfoy had lied to or confused Harry, it was even more imperative that Ron and Hermione be there, to provide some perspective.

Ron carefully smoothed out the letter and looked at it again. He realized he was smiling, and shook his head a little, but the smile remained.

He had left the Ministry in disgust. All the ways that someone could escape justice, all the ways that the Ministry could pervert it—he hadn't wanted to know any more about them. He had wanted a clean, normal life, and to still support Harry if he could, but that didn't extend to standing beside him as he fought a battle Ron believed was hopeless.

If there was a way to end the battle, though, and bring it home to the Ministry that they couldn't do things like this…

_If there's anyone who can do that, it's Harry._

"Ron? Who sent us a letter?"

Ron stood up and came over to bend down and kiss his wife on the forehead. Hermione sat up, her hair still frazzled, and blinked at him. Ron handed her the letter, and watched her breath catch as she saw the signature and recognize the writing.

She read it a lot faster than he had, the way she always did, and then reared back and looked at him again. "But of course we're going to help them?" she demanded, even as she asked.

Ron nodded, and smoothed the hair back from her forehead again. "I wouldn't miss it," he said truthfully. "Not when Harry is so determined, and he seems to have good plans. I don't know if anyone else can pull it off, but he can, if we're there." _Along with Malfoy. _Ron still despised the man, but he would work with him if he had to.

Hermione smiled. The smile was deeper and fiercer than just the smile of someone contemplating helping her best friend. "The owl didn't wait for a response?"

Ron shook his head, and she nodded, thoughtfully, back to him. "That must mean he was sure of what we would say, and he's giving us time to absorb the news. He'll send us word of where to meet with him later."

She was sinking back into bed, using the time to study the letter again. Ron smiled. There was a time when she would have insisted on getting dressed and dashing off into the night to look for Harry, or at least his owl, but she'd grown up somewhat. They all had.

"He will," Ron said, and felt some of the same faith that shone in her eyes when she raised them back to his. This was the future, _a _future. But it was like the past, too. Harry was calling them to battle, and they would go to him.

Ron could feel the excitement stirring and building in his chest as he stood there, in that simple position, his arm resting along the back of Hermione's pillow. It was like hearing a horn blowing far away, the kind that summoned other Aurors to a comrade in need. Ron had been glad to leave the Aurors.

Even so, any similar sound to that rich bugle still made him spin around and reach for his wand, and he had to respond at the thought of fighting the Ministry, probably the biggest and most complicated enemy that the Aurors had.

Hermione yawned and laid the letter aside. "Let's read it again in the morning and decide what to do then." She lifted the blankets in silent invitation.

Ron nodded and slid under them with her, leaning his head on her chest. Long after she fell asleep, though, he was still staring at the far wall and planning.

There was no question. They were going to Harry, and they would help him defeat the Ministry as soundly as possible. And they would get along with Malfoy, or deal with him and take him apart if he was another enemy.

This was the first time they would fight together as adults, Ron thought idly. He and Harry had fought side-by-side in the Aurors, but Hermione hadn't chosen to become one, and had been shut out from that.

Now…

Ron smiled again and closed his eyes. They would follow the horn in the morning.

**The End.**


End file.
